Assemblies including supported shafts typically require bearings to guide the supported shaft. In situations involving very close guidance, e.g. controlling the location of a gear mesh, an adjusted bearing arrangement is selected and two opposing angular contact bearings are pushed together until a specific preload is achieved. Setting this preload can be challenging during assembly due to the variety of component/part tolerances that are stacked together in the assembly which must be accounted for. The fitting between an inner bearing ring and the shaft is one of the critical tolerances that must be accounted for in this stacked arrangement. Fitment between the inner ring and the shaft is required to keep the inner ring from rotating relative to the shaft, which creates damage called fretting.
A few existing solutions are currently utilized to accomplish a proper fitment: (1) measure all of the parts of bearing assembly, calculate a spacer, and set a sufficient preload; and (2) select a spacer at random, assemble all of the bearing parts, measure a friction torque and compare to a known relationship between preload and friction torque to determine if the preload is properly set, and iteratively dis-assembling and re-assembling different spacers and repeat torque measurement until reaching a desired configuration. The first solution is undesirable because it is very difficult to efficiently make this measurement to include fitment effects. The second solution is undesirable because it is very hard to disassemble the parts with interference fits.
It would be desirable to provide a simplified anti-rotation device that does not require an interference fit between the shaft and inner bearing ring, but still avoids fretting between the shaft and the inner bearing ring. This would provide a simplified and more efficient configuration to set the preload of the bearing.